Electrostatic coaters have become used in various fields of industry, and those having a rotary atomizing head are widely used for coating vehicle bodies, for example. These electrostatic coaters are called rotary atomizing coaters. As disclosed in Patent Documents 1 to 8, such a rotary atomizing head is an assembly of an atomizing head body and a structural component to be disposed in the central portion of the atomizing head body. Paint is supplied to the rotary atomizing head through a feed tube, and atomized by the rotary atomizing head that rotates at a high speed. For assuring the high speed, the rotary atomizing head is required to be highly precisely balanced in rotation.
For internal cleaning of the rotary atomizing head, there have been developed techniques for facilitating disassembly and reassembly of the rotary atomizing head. Patent Document 1 discloses a rotary atomizing head that permits the structural component to be accessed from the back thereof and attached to the atomizing head body. Patent Document 1 proposes to form paint discharge openings in the atomizing head body and attach a structural component to the atomizing head body from behind it to define a paint chamber between the structural component and the atomizing head body in the rotary atomizing head. The chamber is for receiving paint supplied from a feed tube.
Patent Documents 2 et seq. disclose rotary atomizing heads of a type in which a hub member, which is a structural component, is accessed from the front side of the atomizing head body and attached to the latter. Patent Document 2 proposes to fix the hub member in a central concavity of the atomizing head body via an elastic ring. More specifically, the rotary atomizing head disclosed in Patent Document 2 has a circumferential groove (first circumferential groove) formed in the circumferential wall of the central concavity of the atomizing head body and another circumferential groove (second circumferential groove) formed in the circumferential surface of the hub member. With the elastic ring being interposed between the first and second circumferential grooves, the hub member is detachably fixed to the atomizing head body.
In the rotary atomizing head of Patent Document 2, the hub member can be easily detached from the atomizing head body, and it can be attached again to the atomizing head body after cleaning.
The rotary atomizing head disclosed by Patent Document 3 is another prior-art example that can be disassembled and reassembled. The rotary atomizing head of Patent Document 3 has a shoulder formed at the front end of the circumferential wall of the central concavity in the atomizing head body. Patent Document 3 proposes to fit the hub member, which is disc-shaped, onto the shoulder. More particularly, the disc-shaped hub member has elasticity and flexibility given by its shape and material properties, and it is brought into fitting engagement with the shoulder of the atomizing head body under the elasticity and flexibility. Further, to prevent the hub member from slipping off forward of the atomizing head body, Patent Document 3 uses a retaining circumferential ridge formed on the circumferential surface of the shoulder of the atomizing head, or tapers the circumferential surface of the shoulder to be narrower forward. Patent document also discloses a rotary atomizing head of Patent Document 3 having a spoon-cut recess formed in the bottom of the central concavity of the atomizing head body. A wall surface continuous to the spoon-cut recess is shaped to make an inclined wall surface gradually widened forward. The above-mentioned disc-shaped hub member has a plurality of paint discharge openings formed concentrically in the outer circumferential surface thereof. The paint discharge openings extend tangentially to the inclined wall surface.
Patent Document 4 proposes using a permanent magnet attached to a disc-shaped hub member and another permanent magnet attached to an atomizing head body, which receives the disc-shaped hub member, to secure the disc-shaped hub member to the atomizing head body with an attraction force of the permanent magnets.
Patent Document 5 proposes to use a disc-shaped hub member having a number of legs. A free end of each leg is put in engagement with the circumferential recess in the central concavity of the atomizing head body to detachably hold the hub member in the atomizing head body. Further to this, Patent Document 5 proposes providing a clearance between the outer circumferential surface of the disc-shaped hub member and the atomizing head body to use it as a paint path.